The present invention relates generally to the field of interface devices and to their configuration and programming. More particularly, the present invention relates to techniques for manipulation of objects of industrial automation devices and their visual representations on the interface devices.
A wide range of interface devices are known and are presently in use in many different fields. In industrial automation, for example, human machine interfaces or “HMIs” are commonly employed for monitoring or controlling various processes. The HMIs may read from or write to specific registers such that they can reflect the operating state of various machines, sensors, processes, and so forth. The interfaces can also write to registers and memories such that they can, to some extent, control the functions of the process. In monitoring functions alone, little or no actual control is executed. In many other settings similar devices are employed, such as in automobiles, aircraft, commercial settings, and a host of other applications. In many applications, the interface may not communicate with a remote device or process, but may be operated in a stand-alone manner.
In these interface devices, various objects used in the interface may correlate to different controls, monitors, or any other parameter of an industrial automation device. Some of these objects may have visual representations on the interface devices, while other objects may not be visually represented but may be accessible for configuration and programming by a user. A user may desire to manipulate these objects, such as by creating new objects, copying objects, pasting objects, etc., to create and customize an interface.
In some instances, a user may access the interface devices via a client such as a web browser. In either case, the performance and responsiveness of the interface device or web browser may be affected by manipulation of the objects of the interface device. For example, the caching functionality of the web browser may result in caching a large amount of objects in memory, thus reducing the amount of memory available for execution of the interface. Additionally, transfer of data between the web browser, the interface device, and the industrial automation device may also affect the performance and responsiveness of the interface device and web browser.